


My Head Told My Heart

by canistakahari



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Mission Fic, Serious Injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-10
Updated: 2012-10-10
Packaged: 2017-11-16 01:26:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/533950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/canistakahari/pseuds/canistakahari
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim isn't exactly prepared to find out just how terrifying the thought of losing Bones is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Head Told My Heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [seanchaidh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/seanchaidh/gifts).



It doesn’t really make sense, considering Jim doesn’t actually meet Bones until he’s twenty-two.   
  
He’s spent the overwhelming majority of his life without a Bones-shaped presence in his life; too much time lacking his friend’s abrasive affection, the sarcasm that seems to come to him as naturally as breathing, the co-dependent support system they’ve fashioned for themselves that balances them out when they’re rudderless and drifting.   
  
And yet, even though Bones is a fairly new addition to Jim’s life, someone that has effortlessly insinuated himself into Jim’s heart and soul, somewhere along the line, Bones has become a person that Jim cannot live without.   
  
In fact, Bones is such a necessary part of Jim’s entire existence, such an ingrained and comfortable fact of life, that most of the time Jim takes him for granted.   
  
Not in the sense that Jim ignores him or undervalues him or doesn’t privately treasure every single time he makes Bones laugh or Bones takes care of him in some small, negligible way, like doing Jim’s laundry without asking just because he’s doing his own.   
  
No. What Jim does is begin assuming that, although Bones hasn’t always been there, he always will be now. Because it  _feels_  like Bones has always been there; he’s the kind of person that Jim barely has to get to know because it’s like they met in a previous life and their old souls remained connected, natural and easy, in an innate, organic way. New details always emerge, but the foundation doesn’t alter.   
  
Bones will always be there. There isn’t anything in the universe with enough power to change that.  
  
It scares the shit out of Jim to learn that there absolutely is.   
  
The ground trembles from the force of the blast, and Bones, who’s got one hand on the stone wall beside him as he glares down at his tricorder, gets knocked right onto his ass.   
  
“Goddammit,” he mutters, fumbling to get his feet back under him.   
  
Jim almost laughs. That’s the thing that gets him later, when he’s replaying this moment in his mind. He almost fucking  _laughs_.   
  
“Smooth,” says Jim cheekily, holding out a hand to help him up.   
  
Bones glowers up at Jim’s grinning face and knocks his proffered hand out of the way. He’s just gotten half-way to his feet when another blast hits, much too close to their position, and the expression on Bones’s face changes as he slips and tumbles, the raised lip of the mountain path catching him in the back as he strikes the edge and skids over it. Bones sucks in a painful breath, his eyes wide, while Jim reacts instinctively, throwing himself to the ground and grabbing at Bones’s wrist with both hands as Bones’s momentum pulls him over the edge to stop short, body swinging perilously back and forth.  
  
“Bones,” says Jim, the weight of Bones’s body dragging him closer to the edge until the rim of the cliff face is pressing into his chest and he can see the top of Bones’s head and his swinging legs. He digs his heels in and tries to lean back. “ _Bones_ , don’t you dare—don’t you fucking dare—”  
  
Everything is crumbling, collapsing, and Bones’s fingers are slipping out of Jim’s sweaty grip. “Jim, I can’t.” Bones’s voice drifts up high and thready. “My arm is—I can’t get a grip—”  
  
“I will throw you in the brig if you fall,” grinds out Jim. “I will court martial—no, I will  _personally_  fucking tar and feather you. Fuck, Bones, it’s an  _order_ , just  _hold on_.”  
  
Bones’s face turns up to him, dirt-streaked and shaken, and his reply is swallowed by the reverberating echo of a fucking  _mortar_  and then a cloud of dust vacuums up into Jim’s face and does it’s very best to choke him, and Bones falls.  
  
Bones  _falls_.

Jim can’t remember what happens next.   
  
The mountain must stop getting the shit bombed out of it, because Jim comes back to himself as he’s picking his way down a sheer cliff face, and his brain is completely avoiding the task at hand, relying entirely on automatic reflex and instinct as it screams  _no no no no Bones god no no this is not happening this can’t be happening this cannot be fucking happening Bones Bones oh god Bones—_  
  
 _—_  might be dead.  
  
God,  _no_.  
  
Jim can’t lose Bones. This isn’t how it happens, this isn’t how it  _goes_.   
  
“Bones,” rasps Jim, picking his way down to where the cliff face eases out into the dip of a sloping valley, where the dust is still rising in soft, hazy clouds. “Bones!”  
  
Over the next ridge and down another cresting hill and Jim finds him, body crumpled in a heap on a pile of rubble, curled into a foetal position, covered from head to foot in dust and ash and dirt. He’s so still, so utterly silent, that Jim nears vomits, his legs abruptly losing muscle coordination as Jim falls to his knees next to him.  
  
Jim never wanted to learn that Bones is not indestructible. He never fucking wanted to learn that Bones is frighteningly  _fragile_ , just like all human bodies are fragile, and Jim was a fool to operate under any other assumption.   
  
“Bones,” he whispers, running his hands gently over his arms and shoulders, reluctant to move him. There’s a sticky patch of blood oozing from his temple, blood pouring from his nose, and the tears blur Jim’s vision as he presses two fingers to Bones’s throat and finds a pulse, sluggish but steady. His breath comes in shallow puffs against Jim’s skin. Jim’s voice is shaky as he fumbles for his communicator. “Enterprise, Kirk to Enterprise, I need an emergency beam-out. Repeat, two to beam up, it’s an  _emergency_ —”  
  
Scotty’s voice comes back to him, static-laced but oh-so-welcome.  _“Five minutes, captain. We’re still struggling to compensate for an atmospheric disturbance.”_  
  
“Hurry,” presses Jim. “And have a medical team standing by in the transporter room.”  
  
 _“Aye, captain.”_  
  
In the end, all he can do is wait.  
  
So Jim sits cross-legged and helpless on the dirt, holding Bones’s hand listening to the reassuring pattern of his breaths.   
  
Bones will always be there. There isn’t anything in the universe with enough power to change that as long as Jim Kirk is around, too.


End file.
